


Mercy

by Anonymous



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abusive Relationships, M/M, Trauma, that horrifying russingon premise from discord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 01:27:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12570636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Fingon patches the gaps and crafts Maedhros into a new person, one who will be forever loyal to him.





	Mercy

He really shouldn’t be walking but at least he’s not kneeling anymore; Maitimo—Maedhros now, has to remember that—makes his slow painful way to Fingon’s room. They’re sharing it; they’re short on space in the compound and Fingon volunteered and it’s a little odd for people born in the safety of Aman to be so enthusiastic about it but everyone who remembers Cuivienen or knows anyone who remembers Cuivienen or has heard anything at all about their history knows that the honored elders of their people never, ever, ever sleep alone.

Maedhros finally sits down on the foot of the bed and waits there, off his feet and away from all the people who want things from him, who can’t be predicted, who want mutually exclusive things, who stare at him like they’re sizing him up, who are all so much stronger than he is.

Eventually, Fingon comes to him. Maedhros starts to rise.

“Sit,” says Fingon, and he does.

“Thank you.”

Fingon sits beside him, not looking at him. It’s a kindness Maedhros doesn’t deserve and didn’t ask for; he used to know how to bear being watched, back when he was beautiful and beloved, back when attention wasn’t almost always the prelude to torture. Fingon even allows Maedhros to look at him, to watch him for any sign of danger, to know what’s going to happen before it does.

At the moment, Fingon is relaxed. He smiles. “I expect that settles it,” he says. “As long as you keep your brothers from doing anything stupid.”

“I will.”

“That’s all I need from you today,” says Fingon. “Rest and be stronger tomorrow.”

Maedhros sighs in relief. He’s safe until tomorrow.

-

Fingon probably wasn’t pretending, back before everything, when he seemed to love Maedhros. It seems absurd now, a transparent lie, but Maedhros is still sure it was true once.

He doesn’t pretend now, either. Not when they’re alone. Maedhros is useful. That’s all. Fingon has made that clear from the beginning, since the moment on the eagle’s back with Fingon’s hand like a vise around his wrist, when Fingon told him “you _will_ make this worth my while” and Maedhros only hoped Fingon would eventually let him die.

He doesn’t hope for that anymore. As long as he can make himself useful it would be selfish to want to leave the fight to others, to want to rest. Ae.nd Lake Mithrim is much nicer than Angband and Fingon is much nicer than Morgoth.

Fingon risked much worse than death for him and makes it very clear what he expects in return and never goes back on a promise, never hurts Maedhros without warning, never asks him to hurt another person or serve the Enemy or even merely to do the impossible.

Maedhros is not cowed. He has looked the Enemy in the eye and told him to fuck himself with a pickaxe. He has hung from a mountain alone without another living being to speak to him or touch him until he longed even for torture and still never once considered offering the Enemy his service for any mercy at all. But he can tell the difference between Morgoth and a friend with a few reasonable requests like eternal service and absolute unthinking obedience. Maedhros has seen evil and Fingon is certainly not that.

-

He’s not making a point, it’s bad luck as much as anything else—he rarely has cause to refer to himself in the third person and he can usually remember his name—but he calls himself Maitimo one evening while he and Fingon discuss how they’ll maintain communication between the Noldor when they spread out to more fortresses than they have palantiri.

“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. He kneels without being asked; it hurts, but less now, less every time, now that he’s safe and healing.

Fingon rakes his fingers through his too-short hair, scratches his scalp hard, grabs a handful of hair and pulls and holds on.

“Your name,” says Fingon.

“Mai… Maedhros.”

Fingon lets go. “You can get up now.”

He does.

He used to speak his name, his old name, used to scream it in their faces and whisper it like a lullaby to himself on cold nights on the mountainside. They would have denied him any name. Fingon lets him have one, though, and it would be unreasonable to care too much what name it is.

“So, anyway,” Fingon says, and that’s the end of it, it’s over. Fingon’s anger is short-lived and he never seriously hurts Maedhros; it’s reassuring to be certain that even when he does fail, even when he does anger Fingon, he won’t be punished in a way he can’t bear.

-

Sometimes he thinks some essential part of him, the part that made him a person, the part that made him able to be around other people, must have shaken loose and fallen from him and smashed on the ground at the base of the mountain.

He knows he wants to see Morgoth defeated, but goals smaller than that are hard and he doesn’t remember how to make fast choices when he can’t spend a long time considering all of the arguments for and against. Truly trivial choices where there are no arguments for or against are the worst.

He knows he wasn’t always afraid of people, but he is now; there are so many things he could do wrong, so many ways he could anger them, so many people who might hurt him for so many different reasons.

He knows he used to enjoy company, sometimes. There used to be some way to bridge the distance between minds, between souls; he used to have relationships that weren’t only about working together to defeat Morgoth. The closest he has to that now is Fingon; he can muster up something a little like fondness, from the guilt and gratitude and relief; it’s a little like love, isn’t it, to feel at ease with him and want to do things for him?

Fingon patches the gaps and crafts Maedhros into a new person, one who will be forever loyal to him.

-

Maedhros kneels. It doesn’t hurt anymore.

“Don’t make me regret trusting you to go that far east,” says Fingon.

“I won’t. I…” Maedhros considers, draws a breath, lets it out, draws another. “By all that’s left of me, by all the powers and by Eru Iluvatar, I swear I’ll serve you, east or west, in Beleriand or in Aman or in the Everlasting Darkness, with all my will and all my strength. I will serve you and I will do as you command and I will make it worth your while to have claimed me from Morgoth.”

He watches Fingon’s reaction. Fingon smiles.

“I made the right choice,” he says. “Try to find some peace out there, have fewer nightmares. Make the orcs fear you. Be mine, wherever you are. Forever.”


End file.
